The Last Stand
by Sacrom574
Summary: A UNSC Marine goes on a suicide mission to eliminate as many Covies as possible.


Deep down, he knew it was over.

What else could he have been thinking? His whole squad was dead, bodies scattered all over the downed and smoking Pelican, including the pilot. The Covenant squad who had shot it down was converging on his position, and UNSC Marine Private Steven Host knew he wouldn't be able to stand and live against it.

But if he would go down, he would go down fighting, and he'd be damned if he didn't take at least one or two of the alien fucks with him.

Host took a quick inventory of what he had: couple of battle rifles, three or four MA5C carbines, a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and a heap of grenades. Looking up at the part of the crashed dropship that covered the ground, he realized he'd forgotten that they'd been issued a Warthog.

There was no chance he was going down easy. Not with all of this firepower.

He jumped down softly from the Pelican as the sound of footsteps reached his ears. He'd chosen to arm himself with an MA5C, and now he hurtled out from his cover to blaze away at a surprised Elite, driving it back as he downed its shields in seconds and then finished it off with a few shots to the head before diving back to cover behind the Pelican as several spikes impacted the wall of the craft where he had been standing seconds ago.

Brutes? Aw, shit...

He primed a frag, then flipped out of cover and chucked it at the feet of the approaching Covies. One Jiralanhae "Brute" and three "Jackal" (he'd forgotten the species' name) corpses later, he was blazing away at the remaining Elite and its subordinate Grunts. The Elite took no time at all to kill - it was an unskilled Minor, who moved back awkwardly as the MA5C rounds impacted on his energy shielding. Within seconds it was dead like the rest of the invading bastards.

The Grunts (Unngoy, were they called?), surprised at Host's luck, turned and ran in the direction of reinforcements. Out of the four, only one made it, making it out of the assault rifle's range by the time Host turned his barrel on him.

Everything was silent, and the Marine hurtled back to the Pelican and clambered into the cockpit to hit a button that released the Warthog. Once that was done, he hopped down onto the ground as the vehicle disengaged istelf from the downed Pelican and vaulted into the driver's seat. He revved the thing to life, and was about to begin the road to base when he spotted another, bigger Covenant squad - this one's Elite was of higher rank, evident by his armor, and was holding a Covenant carbine unlike the previous one's plasma rifle.

Host jumped back down to the ground as several shots hit the driver's seat, and instead vaulted into place behind the turret situated on the back section of the Warthog. Swerving it into position to face the oncoming enemy, the Marine roared,

"SHOOT ME, MOTHERFUCKERS!"

One by one, the aliens fell under the merciless combination of human and machine gun turret. But once again, a Grunt (the same one, Host noticed) escaped death.

Seconds later, a trio of Ghosts zoomed out from behind a corner, each manned by an Elite. The Marine managed to take down one of the three vehicles with the heavy-duty turret before its comrades let loose a slew of plasma from the twin cannons built into the fronts of the things.

The end was imminent if he didn't move. Host threw himself backwards, off the Warthog and onto the ground, as four or five globules of plasma hit the vehicle; one of them, by chance, caught the gas tank, and in seconds the whole craft was engulfed in flames.

Host backtracked as far as he could from the thing before it exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions. The Marine grunted as several of the pieces impacted his armor and pain shot through his chest. He was gonna need a medkit.

The remaining two Ghosts stopped about fifteen meters away from him, and from the cockpits leapt out the two Elites Host had been dreading. Only a SPARTAN, or possibly an ODST could withstand an attack from one of these. But he had to try... it was the best he could do to honor his fallen squad.

Host primed two grenades and threw them, one after the other, at the oncoming Elites. As he did so, one of the pincer-mouthed bastards emitted a war cry of some sort, mouth wide open... just as the grenade landed into it. The Elite managed a surprised wort before the grenade exploded, taking him and his comrade down at the same time. The second explosive detonated behind them, wrecking both Ghosts.

"Shiiiit..." Host had hoped he would be able to comandeer one of the vehicles and ride it into battle against the Covenant bastards. The Marinee picked himself up from the ground, groaning. He wasn't gonna die. He couldn't. With some difficulty, Host managed to pull out the pieces of shrapnel that had hit his armor when the Warthog had blown, wincing in pain as each was removed. Once that was done, he got on all fours and began crawling slowly to the downed Pelican - there'd be a medkit in there somewhere.

After about half a minute, he made it. Luckily for him, a medkit had fallen out of the Pelican and was now on the floor, within arm's reach. Host's hands deftly opened the little box with relief, pulling out various medical supplies and beginning to dress his wounds. Gasping in pain as some biofoam did its job, he stood up and slammed a new clip into his assault rifle.

More Covie reinforcements appeared from around a corner and Host charged forwards with renewed strength, a wild expression on his face and a primal roar emanating from his vocal cords as he pulled the trigger to unleash thirty-two little pieces of death. After he'd wasted the clip, he chucked his last frag toward the Covenant before him, and slapped in a fresh clip to his assault rifle as he watched the grenade explode, taking three Jackals, five Grunts, and a Brute into oblivion. One hell of a throw.

The horizon was clear once more for the moment, so Host jogged back to the Pelican to pick up a different set of weapons from the bodies of his comrades. Dropping the MA5C, he instead took an M6C pistol from the Sarge and his best friend's (until he had died) BR55, as well as several more grenades and a medkit in case he got into deep shit and was too far away from the Pelican.

When he came outside again, he froze in horror.

Twenty Grunts, twelve Jackals, seven Elites, all coming at him, weapons spitting plasma. He ducked, rolled, came up standing to chuck several grenades at the enemy (silently, the Marine thanked his father for making him go to baseball practice) before looking through the battle rifle's scope and firing several precise, three-round bursts of lead that embedded themselves in the monsters that hadn't died of the grenade shower.

More Covenant came, and more lay to rest forever as the single Marine stood his ground, wiping life after life from existence, scattering the Covenant troops' ranks with conventional ballistic weaponry, then with needlers and plasma pistols and plasma rifles and plasma grenades as he advanced forward, picking up weapons from the Covenant bodies.

How the hell he had managed to survive for so long against so many, he had no idea. But to motivate himself, to whip himself up into a combat frenzy, he began chanting the marching song he'd been forced to memorize in boot camp.

"When I die, please bury me deep!

Place an MA5 down by my feet!

Don't cry for me, don't shed a tear!

Just pack my box with PT gear!

'Cuz one early morning 'bout zero five!

The ground will rumble, there'll be lightning in the sky!

Don't you worry, don't come undone!

It's just my ghost on a PT run!"

He felt unstoppable. Elite after Elite, Brute after Brute, Jackal after Jackal fell to the ground as he continued his counterattack. They were scared, unable to comprehend the fact that they were getting slaughtered by a single, puny, human soldier on a killing spree. None of the aliens was even able to get close to the Marine; he had mastered the art of reloading various weapons so well he didn't even have to look down to make sure he was doing the right thing.

The latest plasma rifle ran dry, and he picked up a plasma pistol from a dead Grunt and continued firing. A Brute managed to get into melee range, but the crazed Marine tossed a plasma grenade into its maw and walked onwards, not turning or ducking in response to the blast behind him. An Elite came up behind him to impale the man with his energy sword, but the Marine somehow sensed danger and threw himself forwards and out of harm's way, whipping out his pistol and firing point blank into the maw of the beast before him before clambering to his feet once more and continuing his streak.

And then, quite suddenly, he lost his touch. His strength failed him, and his hands went down, letting the weapons they held drop to the ground with a clatter. Almost immediately a combination of Brute spikes, plasma, and needlers impacted his body armor. He grunted in pain, and fell down to the ground as an Elite came before him, a plasma sword in his hands. He raised it over the near-dead Marine, brought it down into the soldier's body. The human gasped in pain, but almost seconds later a smile came upon his face- it was all over. 


End file.
